When there's computer difficulties at home, sometimes there's simply no replacement for an actual human skilled in the ways of kicking the crap out of your computer until it works again. Big box retailer Best Buy created its Geek Squad, a cadre of computer techs that travel to people's homes in a customized VW Beetle. Others have followed suit. Now, Dell, without physical retail locations or a human geek squad to assist its customers in need of unsnarling nasty computer bugs, has launched Nerd Buddy. Well, they've actually launched DellConnect by humorously illustrating why it's really not so convenient to have a geek-like Nerd Buddy follow you around all the time to make sure your computer isn't causing you to use it as a projectile out of frustration.

Aside from the fact Best Buy's Geek Squad and other similar services are nothing like the Nerd Buddy Dell so joyously ribs, the computer maker explains its virtual tech support solution, DellConnect is better than having a human geek follow you around. It's all presented in one of those goofy, docu-style videos complete with fake scientists in white lab coats.

Remember that weird You are Music thing Nokia did, the thing with the bodysuit guy and the rapper? To push the N800 internet tablet, Sweden's FarFar brings us more weird, somewhat off-putting work with The Internet Walk, which plays on the notion of taking the internet to places it's never been.

Sounds like a good idea in theory but we don't get this at all. And now we can't get the annoyingly lyrical "Come on" out of our heads.

With help from Dalla-based AdverTickets, GMC is offering free valet parking to shoppers in eight cities as part of a promotion for the car maker's new Acadia SUVation wagon crossover vehicle. shoppers in LA. Miami, Orlando, Phoenix, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco and Tampa will be given tickets good for free valet parking. Also part of the promotion are Boom-Ads, wraps that cover the gates drivers who choose not to valet park must pass through to get into parking structures.

We think it's all well and good to help a struggling shopper out but hello? It's winter up here in the Northern half! We could certainly use the luxury of valet parking far more than all those warm staters who should enjoy walking from their car to the mall whereas those of us up here have to endure frostbite weather and the pummeling of winter winds. Something's wrong here.

Copyranter began an open dialog with Ketel One vodka in mid-2006 using the company's all-type/lots of white space print ads to do so. Copyranter's latest conversation responds to the distiller's latest headline, "Dear Ketel One Drinker, Not everyone likes Ketel One. Then again, not everyone's tried it" with "Dear Ketel One Maker, Not everyone hates your ads. Then again, not everyone's seen them." You've at least got to hand it to Ketel One for hanging on to the campaign for a while. If for nothing more than to give Copyranter more opportunities to continue the conversation.

In a liaison that appears strange at first glance, Lay's potato chips joins nationally syndicated series HomeTeam in fueling the fantasies of starry-eyed virgin homeowners. Lays.com will feature moments of joy from past and upcoming episodes. The show is hosted by former Apprentice star Troy McClain.

A good if unlikely liaison. We're pretty sure that the consumption of chips on a couch of one's own is a fantasy every American has when constructing that imaginary white picket fence.

- Without a review, Revlon has moved it $200 million from Carat to Initiative. Well, that's gotta suck for Carat.

- Yet another anti-advertising group fights the proliferation of outdoor advertising. The problem with all these groups though is that they use the same techniques all other advertisers do which simply adds even more to the already ridiculously cacophonous level of marketing litter.

Historically shunned but acknowledged more and more every year by car markers is the inevitable fact car accidents happen. Following VW's most recent entry with its dramatic crash ads comes this work (one, two) by Team One and visual effects company A52 for Lexus in which an interesting approach is taken to illustrate the ability of Lexus vehicles to help you avoid accidents. Each of the two spots takes a reverse look at an accident and, through a set change, takes us from the accident to a world in which the accident never occurs.

Recently, the Danish Road Safety Council took a similar but more dramatic approach with a couple ads that reverse the filming of an actual accident. The Lexus campaign imagines a world without accidents/injury because cars are designed to be safer. The Road Safety Council imagines the same thing but by urging people to drive more safely. Each uses trauma to illustrate trauma doesn't have to occur in the first place.

For some reason, YouTube has become a channel through which marketers enjoy teasing us with their upcoming campaigns. More and more, clips of upcoming campaigns are appearing on the video site and now it's Adidas' turn to tease us with its next installment of the Impossible is Nothing campaign. The campaign will focus on how various athletes overcame personal challenges as illustrated through...uh...artwork. OK. Can we just have the full campaign, please? View the teasers here, here, here and here.

If you like the Geico Caveman, you may be seeing a lot more of him in the not to distant future. And no, not because he'll keep popping up in commercials but because he'll be the star of a new ABC sitcom. That's right. Apparently someone over at ABC likes the caveman so much, they want three of them to humorously battle prejudice while living in Atlanta.

Joe Lawson, the Martin Agency copywriter behind the Geico campaign is on-board as a writer at least for the pilot which will even feature a Gieco spokesman. Now that's some serious brand integration.

Product placement is for losers. Getting your ad campaign turned into a TV show is the new new thing. Just think. Now, we can expect TV shows about a fast food worker who dreams he's a rapper married to a bald pop star. Or two closeted gays who go under cover as manly auto mechanics to hide their love for each other from their uptight, Southern Baptist families. Or even an emotional drama about the father of a family of robots who has just lost his job, contemplates suicide and fights to put his life back together for himself and his family. The possibilities are endless. Start submitting your campaigns to the nets right away! They're in a buying mood.

Feel like showcasing your marketing savvy with a public guerilla campaign? Post-Boston, be careful - The People are sensitive of late.

At least that's what Microsoft's discovering with its recent ground-floor attempt to push the Zune.

A blast of music from the tricked-out Zune-mobile sparked sleep-deprived residents in Lower East Side Manhattan, not to drop their iPods, but to seek restitution on a scathing site called Wake Up Microsoft.

To start with, they sarcastically thank the big blue company for their "noise terrorism." Noise terrorism? Is that anything like Lite-Brite terrorism? While Microsoft deserves a wrist-slap for thinking they could start a spontaneous block party, this certainly isn't the only shockwave of moody distaste they've inadvertently triggered lately.

Update: Cliczune's post on the Zune SUV includes the comment of at least one user who wouldn't mind being jarred out of sleep at 3 AM by the system's impressive clarity.